2018 Power Rankings-Week 10
We've made it 100 weeks into the LOC regular season. 100 games. Crazy. Two teams have gotten to the 100 game mark at exactly .500, proving that fantasy football isn't exactly Hell. It's more like purgatory. Or having to sit at Thanksgiving dinner knowing that there's a game on in the living room. This is the latest in LOC history that 3rd place has been tied with 7th. The 5-4 log jam is sure to produce some playoff teams, but at least one of these five squads is going to find themselves in the consolation tournament in four weeks. There are 5 meetings between current 5-4 teams that will shape the playoff picture in the weeks to come, and I think it’s safe to say that one team controls the fate of the entire bunch: P9 vs. Dee Papa vs. TSB Papa vs. Browns4You Papa vs. Sweet Dee Browns4You vs. TSB If Papa can win this week, he’ll need just one win against one of the three 5-4 teams he faces in order to get that crucial 7th victory. No 7 win team has ever missed playoffs in the 10-team era. In REALLY exciting news, I'm done with my job (sort of). I still have 7 days left, but my boss left and I'm in charge. You know what that means? I'm done with my job. So maybe...just maybe, we could starting getting LOC Gameday Morning to take us through the rest of the season. In the meantime, we're four weeks away from the playoffs. I know. Wild. And that means it's time to bring back the playoff charts. Playoffs?? Mathematically, everyone is still in striking distance of the playoffs. Obviously, things are looking a bit rough for our 8, 9, and 10th place teams. But they could pull it off. Magic Number A Winning Magic Number is the number of consecutive upcoming games a team must win to guarantee winning a given playoff spot. For now, these don't really take into account the points tie-breaker. ^ - Means Team will Finish Better Than this Playoff Spot X - Means Team Cannot Win This Playoff Spot Number - Indicates the total number of upcoming games the team must win in order to guarentee this spot. DNCD - Means team Does Not Control Its Destiny, and thus even after winning all remaining games they need help from other teams, be it with scoring or victories. * - Indicates First Round Bye Elimination Number An Elimination Number is the number of consecutive upcoming games a team must lose to guarantee losing a given playoff spot. ^ - Means Team will Finish Better Than this Playoff Spot X - Means Team Cannot Win This Playoff Spot Number - Indicates the total number of upcoming games the team must lose in order to guarentee losing this spot. MW - Means team Might Win this spot even if they lose the rest of their games. * - Indicates first round bye Week Ten Scenarios *'Pain Train WOO WOO' clinches a playoff spot with: **Win and losses by any (1) of the following combinations: Sweet Dee & Papa's Posse/The Shotti Bunch & Papa's Posse/The Shotti Bunch & Browns4You/Papa's Posse & Browns4You. *'RIPDab' will be eliminated with: **Loss ''and ''wins by Browns4You and Papa's Posse. Most Consecutive Games Without Back-to-Back Wins This week Paddock 9 broke a streak of 11 straight weeks without back-to-back losses. This is the third time he has accomplished that. Some of us have gone through incredible regular season stretches without back-to-back losses. Here is the top five of all-time: For people who are confused, this means that momma once went forty weeks in a row without losing back to back games. But with the good comes the bad, and momma has also had one of the worst stetches without winning back-to-back games. When is the last time you remember Bell of Da Ball winning back to back games? Has it ever happened? Here now is the longest streak by every team in the LOC without back-to-back wins. Crazy that the two teams with the longest stretch without losing back-to-back also have had the 1st and 3rd longest droughts without back-to-back wins. It's only fitting, given that momma and GBM top both of these charts, that they are the two teams I mentioned earlier who are 50-50 in the regular season. Ball is the only team currently on their longest ever streak. We'll be sure to watch that for the rest of the season. See if he can climb this chart (Ball...you don't want to climb this chart). Survivor I know most people have forgotten that at the start of the season we ran our annual Survivor competition, with the winner getting to hand-pick their first three opponents. Well, we still have two teams alive. GBM and the mysterious "Pick or Die" have both made it nine weeks in Survivor. Pick or Die has been living life on the edge since week one, when they picked New Orleans in their only loss of the season. GBM, meanwhile, selected Minnesota in week three when they were upset by the Bills. Pick or Die is in a tough place, with none of the league's top four teams remaining to choose from, while GBM still has KC and NO in their pocket. Stat Chat * MMMS hits the groot line with their loss in week nine. They are now a perfectly average 50-50 in the regular season, 8-8 in the playoffs, and 58-58 lifetime. This season they have moved from 4th to 6th on the all-time list. * TSB becomes the 9th team to reach 30 regular season losses. * GBM becomes the 6th team to reach 50 regular season wins. Bust Watch With some insane trades going down this season, three of the top ten picks are on different teams after the trade deadline. Bell is rumored to be out for the season, putting the nail in Ball's coffin. Ball turned down multiple trade offers for Bell earlier in the season, which they're kicking themselves for not accepting. I know this, because I was in the same situation in my other league. It's a bitter pill to swallow. Bell will officially be certified as a BUST on Tuesday at 4pm. Trade Talk The trade deadline has come and gone. Next week I'll break out the trade tracker charts, but due to a lack of time we can't get those this week. It's been a really tough season for finding time to do shit, in case you guys haven't noticed. GBM and MMMS had what I think (I'm not impartial, full disclosure) was the most fair of the three megatrades that went down before the deadline. GBM traded Kupp for Woods, the WR2 for the WR1 on the Rams. But Kupp has outscored Woods in the last few games played. GBM also traded Fournette for Elliot and Drake for Yeldon. Now, this could bite GBM in the ass if Fournette plays the rest of the season well. Because in reality, he traded a first round pick for a comparable first round pick, but he also traded 2019 draft picks. If Fournette stays healthy, this could favor MMMS. Then we had P9 trade a garbage heap for Tyreek Hill. Not only that, but he paid out the ass in draft picks. P9 gets an explosive WR that he hopes will get him over the Cinco De Lose-O hump, while MMMS basically mortgages their 2018 campaign for a stock pile of picks in 2019. Finally, we had whatever the fuck this Travis Kelce trade was with Bell of da Ball. There were about five million picks traded, enough to make my head hurt. And unlike the prior two trades, where picks were intentionally traded to better potential keeper rounds, this seemed like a game of darts where whatever they hit got traded. So three of the top four teams got themselves a RB1, a WR1, and a TE1. RIPDab, noticeably, made no moves before the deadline. Power Rankings * APT: Record against playoff teams * L3: Point total over the last three games (league rank in parentheses) * RS: Remaining Schedule 1(3). Pain Train WOO WOO (7-2) APT: 4-1 L3: 644.57 (3rd) RS: 18-18 Okay, why not? He think he deserves to be up here, and he's definitely going to beat GBM this week because he always does, so I give up. Pain Train is now on his longest win streak since 2013, when he went to the Glory Bowl. Sure, he only has ten more points than the team in 10th place, but who cares about reality? We live in a dark dystopian alternate universe where our league champion could also be one of the statistically worst teams in history. I'm there for it. Bring on the apocalypse. 2(1). Garoppoblow Me (6-3) APT: 3-3 L3: 751.60 (1st) RS: 17-19 Tied for second longest win streak in team history, GBM also has already tied the number of wins they managed all of last season. GBM ties MMMS and RIP for the most regular season wins against the Shotti Bunch (5). But all good things come to an end, and the two longest win streaks in the league face off for a shot at first place. We all know how this is going to go. Pain Train has been fucking people's hopes and dreams all season. 3(2). WhatCanBrownsDo4You? (5-4) APT: 1-4 L3: 732.11 (2nd) RS: 15-21 Gronk: done or finished? From one TE who can't stay healthy to the next, Browns4You turns to Jordan Reed to help shore up the weak link in the chain of excellence that has been Browns4You this season. They lead the league in scoring and will get a chance to slip into 2nd place this week if they can hang on to their points lead over GBM. A favorable matchup with MMMS is just what the doctor ordered. 4(4). Paddock 9 (5-4) APT: 2-3 L3: 628.15 (4th) RS: 17-19 P9 has now lost two straight since GBM levied the #MattJinx on them with their proclamation of the “Jurassic Renaissance,” ending the longest streak of their career without back-to-back losses. Now they face a pivotal game against the 5-4 team closest to them in the standings: Sweet Dee. Let's see what this expensive, revamped offense has to offer. 5(7). Sweet Dee (5-4) APT: 2-3 L3: 626.45 (5th) RS: 23-13 If Sweet Dee can go 2-2 in their last four games, they will clinch their first above-.500 season in franchise history. It's an exciting time to be a fan of this team, as they continue the trend of the mid-term elections and break down gender barriers. They defeated RIPDab in the first ever matchup between a married couple, notching their first ever regular season win against them in the process. Even at worst case scenario 5-5, they could control their own destiny with games against 1st, 2nd, and 7th place. 6(6). Papa's Posse (5-4) APT: 2-4 L3: 588.35 (8th) RS: 18-18 Papa might not be the scoring sensation that wins championships, but he does give off a gritty, 2011 vibe. He has the will to win, which means a lot in fantasy. Papa is doing the one thing that I've always said is the key to success: beating the bad teams. It's something that MMMS failed to do last season, and it's why they were 6-7 and missed playoffs by one game. It's also what kept GBM as the 6 seed when they were 2nd in scoring. You win the games against inferior squads and it sets you up nicely come December. Papa is 3-0 against non-playoff teams. This week they face another one of those bad teams and is in a good position to go to 6-4 with an inside track at a playoff spot for the first time in three years. 7(5). The Shotti Bunch (5-4) APT: 4-2 L3: 609.89 (7th) RS: 14-22 The Gauntlet of the Gods is off to a bad start for TSB. This is the first time in 13 games against GBM that TSB has failed to break 200. GBM gets a small bit of revenge for the semifinals defeat in which Todd Gurley scored over 70 points and TSB broke 300 for the third time in franchise history. That seems like a long time ago now as Shotti has scored under 200 FOUR times this season. Prior to that, Shotti had never scored below 200 more than 3 times in a single season. Let's face it, they're just not good anymore! But they do face the easiest remaining schedule, so you might as well give this team a 4-6 seed and a fifth banner. 8(8). RIPDab (2-7) APT: 1-5 L3: 620.60 (6th) RS: 18-18 RIPDab first losing season since 2014 and now he even has marine animals cucking him and coming for his manhood. The crazy thing is he has been nurturing a puppy most of the season and you just have to wonder: do we really want that dog growing up in a household where the man of the house can't win a fantasy game?Someone should really call child protective services. 9(10). ma ma momma said (2-7) APT: 1-4 L3: 554.70 (9th) RS: 19-17 Third season in a row that MMMS has clinched a below-.500 record after finishing with 8 or more wins in each of the four seasons prior to that. Their five game losing streak is tied for the longest in franchise history. This is unquestionably the lowest point ever for MMMS, but things are looking up. They own nine picks in the first six rounds of 2019 and 14 in the first 10. 10(9). Bell of da Ball (3-6) APT: 1-4 L3: 523.06 (10th) RS: 21-15 Ball might have pulled the trigger too soon on selling their season, but the reality is this season was alwasy a building year. Had Bell played, it might be a different story. All Bell can hope for now is that they make some waves in the consolation tourney and get some momentum headed into next year. They own eight picks in the first six rounds of 2019. Matchups Another incredible lineup this week. Garoppoblow Me vs. Pain Train Not trying to MattJinx myself to a win, but Pain Train inexplicably always beats me. So I'm not expecting much from this battle of 1-2. GBM has been a scoring phenom the last three weeks and could be due for a regression, while PT will get to try out his new Kansas City toy. When the season started, Pain Train was projected four roughly 80 points this week. Since then they have traded virtually their entire team and are now projected to have the most week ten points in the league. RIPDab vs. The Shotti Bunch This 9th vs. 6th doesn't look great at face value, but consider the years of dominance at RIPDabs expense and that RIP is a heavy favorite despite only being 2-7 and this is a great spoiler game. This is also the second Glory Bowl VII rematch of the season, with RIP winning the first game. RIP can really shake up the playoff picture with an upset victory, while TSB can get back on track and dispel rumors of his demise with a dominating win. Leg two of the Gauntlet of the Gods is sure to be a good one. Paddock 9 vs. Sweet Dee Talk about shaking up the playoff picture. This 4th vs. 5th game of two 5-4 teams will have ripple effects for the entire league. Scoring tiebreakers are big this year, moreseo than ever, and could decide who is in and who is out. With no room for errors, both of these teams need to score big so that even with a loss they keep pace with the other 5-4's in the points column. Papa's Posse vs. Bell of Da Ball Papa is on the outside looking in heading into week 10, but if they can win they will improve to 6-4 and be guaranteed a spot in the top six due to the 5-4 showdown between P9 and Dee. Since they are not currently within striking distance of owning a tiebreaker with anyone above them in the standings (except, strangely enough, 1st place Pain Train), they will need to take this thing on the strength of their W/L record. This is the biggest game of the season (so far) for Papa. ma ma momma said vs. Browns4You This Glory Bowl rematch has all the makings of a Kansas City Chiefs vs. Browns game. It's mostly about padding stats for these two teams as Browns4You's schedule will get increasingly difficult as we move to the end of the season.